Introduction

The SideCAP Project is a European Union (EU) funded project as part of its ACP-EU Cooperation Programme in Higher Education (EDULINK). SideCAP stands for Staff Improvement in Distance Education for Carribbean, African and Pacific universities. There are 5 institutions involved in this project namely the Open University, UK (OU), University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute (UHI), Scotland, University of Mauritius (UM), University of the West Indies (UWI) and The University of the South Pacific (USP).

The project activities include workshops, reports, course materials, quality assurance documents and an interactive network. Project meetings are being held in all partner countries beginning with a kick-off meeting in Milton Keynes, UK, on 12 May 2008. The project has been running for a duration of 32 months concluding with a final dissemination event to be hosted by the University of the South Pacific.

The project was initially led by the late Professor Robin Mason of the Open University of the UK and is now being led by Professor Frank Rennie of UHI.

The overall objective of the project is to:

provide 'learn by doing' opportunities for academic and other staffing in order to improve the quality of teaching, support and technology implementation for distance education at established universities in all three ACP areas.

Its specific objective is to:

repurpose existing Open Content teaching material and adapt it to local contexts using appropriate technologies.

The project activities include workshops, reports, course materials, quality assurance documents and an interactive network. Project meetings are being held in all partner countries beginning with a kick-off meeting in Milton Keynes, UK, on 12 May 2008. The project will be for a duration of 32 months.

About EDULINK

EDULINK is an aid cooperation programme in higher education for the African, Carribean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) and the 15 European Union (EU) member states that are signatories to the 9th European Development Fund (EDF).

It is funded by the EU and implemented by the ACP Secretariat to assist ACP States in their efforts to achieve the targets for the 2nd Millenium Development Goal in the field of higher education, and the Dakar Goals on Education for All.

About USP

About The University of the South Pacific

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is the premier provider of tertiary education in the Pacific region and an international centre of excellence for teaching, research consulting and training on all aspects of Pacific culture, environment and human resource development needs. For more information about USP, click here.